"Do I need to know electronics to work with the Arduino?"
You can mess with the Arduino and even make interesting snap the parts projects, but you certainly will not be able to explain much about its working principle. You can learn how to light an LED using an Arduino, as many schools do, saying that this is studying technology, but certainly you will not be able to create something new with LEDs if you do not know how it works and for what purpose you used that resistor in series with the LED. Thus, knowledge of electronics is important for those who want more than to turn on an LED, start a motor or make a loudspeaker beep and really use an Arduino as a true maker.
